CONTENTS - NUMBER 1, JUNE 1999

A r t i c l e s

LADISLAV KVASZ: Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions - and how to Continue ...3
EMIL VIŠŇOVSKÝ: Why Study Subject: The issue of Power and Love ...17
DUŠAN ČAPLOVIČ: The Slavs and the Beginning of Early-Medieval Central Europe ...28
MILAN PODRIMAVSKÝ: Slovaks in the Conditions of the Hungarian State at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century ...44
JOZEF VICENÍK: Institutionalization and Professionalization of Logic in Slovakia after 1918 ...53
ZORA VANOVIČOVÁ: National hero: Cultural and Historical Context (Milan Rastislav Štefánik in Slovak Folklore ...68
LADISLAV FRANEK: Rhythm as a Condition of Research in Interliterary Relations ...79
MARIÁN GÁLIK: Lao She and His Reception in Bohemia and Slovakia ...86

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KUHN'S STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS - AND HOW TO CONTINUE

Ladislav Kvasz
Department of Humanities, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Comenius University, Mlynská dolina, 842 15 Bratislava, Slovakia

Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions gave rise to a vivid and lasting controversy among the historians and philosophers of science. One of the reasons for this controversy was the use of rather vague and non-specific concepts, such as paradigm and scientific revolution. The aim of this paper is to offer a way to make Kuhn's concepts more precise and thus the discussions more productive. The author suggests a classification of scientific revolutions into three different kinds, which makes it possible to describe the specific and characteristic structure of scientific revolution for each of the three kinds separately. In the author's opinion, Kuhn's concept of scientific revolution is vague because it is a superposition of three different concepts.
pp. 3-16

WHY STUDY SUBJECT: THE ISSUE OF POWER AND LOVE

Emil Višňovský
Department of Social and Biological Communication, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dúbravská cesta 9, 842 06 Bratislava, Slovakia

The issues of subject (the Self), power and love are essentially interconnected. However, while to be the subject means to be in power (and vice versa) to rule at least one's own life, on the other hand to love means "to subject" oneself to the other human being without feeling of "subjection" and "subjugation". The author argues (however unusual this may seem) that essentially there are these two antithetical principles of human life and behaviour: power and love. A. Schweitzer as the great humanist was very well aware of the antihumanizing effects of the phenomenon of power within modern society and he called for pure Christian love for life along with his famous ethical concept of respect for life. The author considers desire for power one of the main sources of evil, while love (altruistic in its essence) is one of the main sources of good. Man and mankind have to choose: either to continue the way of making history as the "way of power", or to switch to a radically different mode - that of the "way of love" - unless they do not wish to enjoy just the only one kind of love - the Nietzschean "amor fati".
pp. 17-27

THE SLAVS AND THE BEGINNINGS OF EARLY-MEDIEVAL CENTRAL EUROPE

Dušan Čaplovič
Archaeological Institute, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Akademická 2, 949 21 Nitra, Slovakia

Critical conclusions and new facts about Slavic settlement in Central Europe are presented. New facts about the Slavic ethnogenesis in relation to Central Europe (territory around the middle Danube in the basin of the river Theiss and in the supra-Danubian region of the Carpathians) from the second to the sixth centuries A.D. are described.
pp. 28-43

SLOVAKS IN THE CONDITIONS OF THE HUNGARIAN STATE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Milan Podrimavský
Institute of Historical Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia

A brief outline of some questions pertaining to the political development of the old Kingdom of Hungary which determined the conditions of the position of the Slovaks in the state as well as the trends in their national-emancipatory efforts aimed at winning the recognition of national sovereignty and the corresponding rights in the multinational Hungarian state respecting the principle of equality of all nations living there is presented.
pp. 44-52

INSTITUTIONALIZATION AND PROFESIONALIZATION OF LOGIC IN SLOVAKIA AFTER 1918

Jozef Viceník
Institute of Philosophy, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia

In his article, the author gives an analysis of the first stage of institutionalization and professionalization of logic in Slovakia in the period of 1918-1948. He writes about difficulties of this process. According to his work the basic transformation from traditional logic to modern formal logic was performed in the content of published studies at the end of the thirties and beginning of the fourties. This process occurred at Colleges and Grammar schools gradually until the year 1949 and was more intensive only in the sixties.
pp. 53-67

NATIONAL HERO: CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT (MILAN RASTISLAV ŠTEFÁNIK IN SLOVAK FOLKLORE)

Zora Vanovičová
Institute of Ethnology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Jakubovo nám. 12, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia

The author starts from the historical genre - the biography of Byzantine saints. In Slovakia this genre is represented by the biography of St. Constantine-Cyril and Methodius from the period of Great Moravia in the 9th century. The study analyses the elements of biography in the contemporary folk oral cycle about the Slovak national hero General Milan RastislavŠtefánik. He was a co-founder of the Czecho-Slovak Republic and died in an air-crush in 1919. The motif of his death is an important myth-creating element in the folk oral cycle.
pp. 68-78

RHYTHM AS A CONDITION OF RESEARCH IN INTERLITERARY RELATIONS

Ladislav Franek
Institute of World Literature, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Konventná 13, 813 64 Bratislava
and Department of Romance Languages, Faculty of Arts, Comenius University, Gondova 2, 818 01, Bratislava, Slovakia

The studies of the author of this contribution, focused on the issue of the rhythmical conditioning of the translation of poetry, emphasize the necessity to go beyond the formalist-structuralist description in perceiving the verse structure, which, in the past, both in our country (M. Bakoš) and abroad (J. Cohen) was restricted to the reality of one language and literature within a wider theoretical and developmental scheme. With regard to the author's own research (Štýl prekladu, The Style of Translation) and the latest achievements, for example in Spanish metrics (J. Domínguez Caparrós), the author highlights the rightful participation of the subject in the perception of poetic translation, where its connection with the uniqueness of the literary and cultural life of a particular country can be mirrored. Such a necessity is a precondition for a more sensitive account of the rhythmical side of the poetic text which the author considers to be of primary importance. He also claims a rather high standard of both theoretical and practical contemplations on artistic translation thanks to the sense of the responsive discrimination between the structure of different languages as well as spiritually symbolic essence of the cultural tradition of Slovak nation.
pp. 79-85

LAO SHE AND HIS RECEPTION IN BOHEMIA AND SLOVAKIA

Marián Gálik
Institute of Oriental and African Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia

The aim of this study, originally read at the International Conference Lao She and the Twentieth Century, held in Peking, February 3-6, 1999, is to analyse the reception of modern Chinese writer Lao She (1899-1966) in former Czechoslovakia in the years 1947-1987.
pp. 86-96

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